LGBT advocates: Supreme Court follow Vermont

Susan Murray, an attorney, knows professionally and personally how same-sex couples have been penalized under federal law because of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Murray was one of the attorneys who brought a legal challenge in Vermont that resulted in a 1999 Vermont Supreme Court ruling that the state constitution required that same-sex couples be granted the same rights and benefits as married heterosexual couples.(Photo: FREE PRESS FILE)Buy Photo

Vermont advocates of LGBT rights are paying attention as the United States Supreme Court hears oral arguments regarding the historic same-sex marriage case.

The case combines six separate cases from four states — Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.

There is a lot of excitement in the community, said Kim Fountain, executive director of the Pride Center of Vermont

"If you are LGBTQ identified, you want community members in any part of the country to have the same kind of legal protections that you have," Fountain said.

The Supreme Court is hearing consolidated cases from the four states under the official name Obergefell v. Hodges. A decision is expected to be made in June.

Several Vermonters said they will be watching or listening from home. The audio recordings of the arguments were online Tuesday afternoon.

"I will be anxiously waiting for those to get a sense of how the arguments went," said Ernest McLeod, a board member for the nonprofit Vermont Freedom to Marry.

No members of Vermont Freedom to Marry planned to attend the arguments, he said.

Two questions are being argued:

Does the 14th Amendment require a state to license a marriage between a same-sex couple? And does that amendment require a state to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state?

"We would love them to simply say that courts are required to issue a marriage license," Fountain said. "That would pretty much take care of question No. 2."

In a statement issued Tuesday, U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., pointed to the case of Loving v. Virginia when the Supreme Court recognized that "marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man."

In the cases heard today, the court has a simple job to do, Leahy said.

"It need only apply these same Constitutional principles to hold that the same principle applies equally regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity," he said.

In April 2009, Vermont was made the fourth U.S. state with marriage equality and the first to achieve it via the legislative process. Today it is legal in 37 states and the District of Columbia for a same-sex couple to be married.

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said gay Americans in all states deserve the right to wed, in a statement issued Tuesday afternoon.

"Of course all citizens deserve equal rights," Sanders said. "It's time for the Supreme Court to catch up to the American people and legalize gay marriage."

Fountain echoed Sanders' thoughts and said she feels the nation is at a tipping point.

Craig Bensen said he doesn't see those 37 states as a victory.

He is the pastor at the Cambridge United Church, an independent church in Cambridge, Vermont, and the former president of Take It to the People, a now disbanded group that supported traditional marriage and wanted a statewide referendum on the issue of same-sex marriage.

"Same sex marriage has been an oxymoron since it was created, and I got into this like 20 years ago" he said.

Bensen said he still believes in traditional marriage.

Susan Murray, a family law and state planning attorney, said she will be anxiously waiting to hear how the arguments went. She noted that spectators are only allotted three minutes in the courtroom to accommodate all who wish to attend.

"I wish I could have gone," she said. "I actually put out feelers to several people I know and law professors who may have had an in."

Murray is a friend of Mary Bonauto — one of the three attorneys to deliver oral arguments Tuesday in front of the Supreme Court.

She has become something of a celebrity in the LGBT world for her work throughout the New England.

Bonauto, alongside Murray and Vermont Supreme Court Justice Beth Robinson, won a 2000 ruling in Vermont which led to the nation's first civil union law.

She was also the lead counsel in a 2004 case when Massachusetts became the first state to allow same-sex marriage and co-counseled in a case that led to the Connecticut Supreme Court to marriage equality, according to her biography on the GLAD website.

"She's fierce," said Fountain, the executive director of the Pride Center. "I look at that woman and I'm like 'damn that is no joke.'"

Murray said she can think of no one better for the job, but there is no telling how the court will rule. Like much of the country, the court is very split, she said.

"To have a court on the verge of declaring that gay relationships are as important and valuable to society as other relationships is extremely exciting," Murray said.

Contact Haley Dover at 660-1850 or hdover@freepressmedia.com. Follow Haley on Twitter at www.twitter.com/HaleyRDover.